thelerner

Also.. what is it wearing around its neck? Kinda looks like a strung up partridge or parrot. note, I'm the guy who thought That monkey sure has big balls whoops peaches.

I don't use mantra's to calm myself. For that I walk, slowly, meditatively. Keep attention on my feet, feeling the earth, how my heel and soul connect with it as they land. To open my hearing, listen closely to sounds and nature around me. I keep my eyes on wide focus. Often, step by step, I find some peace. Perhaps walking itself is a mantra spoken by the feet . There are also some guided meditations I find soothing and good for reducing anxiety. See- The mantra I use most is YHVH from Rawn Clark. More a canticle really, it gets deep and into hermetic magic- http://abardoncompanion.de/TMO-Links.html I mostly do it in the shower for the superior acoustics. To some extent any tune you repeat and focus on can be soothing. Even better when it has some special meaning and the vowels themselves carry some power.

Okay, now I'm dragging this on :(, but here's another video, ignore the first few minutes, but its got a good history of monk and Abott Hai Teng. A fascinating albeit slightly propagandist (cause communist China) biography of the man. It's all fascinating, but you can see him in action around 23:40 & 44:10. Again are these real fights? No.. course not, he's being treated with respect, he's a man is in his 80's or 90's, yet he's damn good. You can see him teaching Shaolin arts throughout. This video is well worth watching. Also watch for the other older masters performing for each other around 38:12 and throughout the video, very very inspiring. An amazing thing I found in yoga ashram's was woman do incredible poses that I assumed required incredible strength, like the scorpion variations and yet it wasn't about strength.. well some yet there are other equally important factors that allowed woman to stay in vertical poses I couldn't even attempt. Again, I could show more videos of woman flowing through incredible strength postures but you might not get it. Think they're fake. What I'm getting at is that balance and extension are the equal to strength in the handstand. What I'm trying to get through is that this is not due to supernatural. If Abbott Hai Teng of Shaolin is doing it at 90, its not because he's supernatural or super strong. It's that he's kept himself in amazing shape, as per seeing him do the splits, and that what's he doing is an extreme example of mind/body coordination, balance and extension. He's also probably deformed his finger due to his one finger sword technique. Again the man in motion- The more I learn the man the more I respect. There are extraordinary people in this world. Not supernatural, but just frickin amazing and inspiring. Giving us something to aim at.

Personally I don't think that video of Ueshiba near the end of his life when he's in mystic grandmaster mode is a good example. Likewise showing the video of 5 year old girl as proof of Ueshiba being a fraud or against the OP video doesn't really mean much to me. There are a dozen of other videos of Ueshiba, still an old man doing remarkable things.. some having him demonstrate on American MP's and others showing much more vigorous attacks and his uncanny ability. If you're willing to look or if you want to start a separate thread on Ueshiba that'd be fine too. If you read, you can read first hand accounts. But do you think that the one finger hand stand is impossible? That it's akin to a person levitating? I don't. I think the right people, extraordinary to be sure, with the right training could do it. That gymnastic strong can achieve it, and that a spiritual (yoga/Shaolin..) strong men too. I think the video of the monk is legit. Not selling anything, but an amazing example of an old man repeating a phenomenal mind/body routine from his youth. I wouldn't be surprised if the middle set up wasn't show because he had help getting into position, but that the end result, him balancing, feet against a wall on one finger was (probably) legit. For example in the middle video (America's got talent) I showed above with Christian Stoinev, at around 2:03 he does a one finger hand stand with no wall, total balance. Note his finger is in a thimblish indentation. Still he's balancing. Look at the strength of the people in the other videos. They're doing dozens of times, what we couldn't do once. Still, Christian is not 90 years old. Could an old man do it? Not anyone. I know the Mighty Atom was ripping horse shoes (not bending, ripping) apart in his late 70's in front of large audiences. He called upon spiritual strength but it was a skill he learned when younger.

Nungali, I was trying to get through that it's not a mysterious power. Least not in my opinion. Not like levitation would be. Numbers of reasons why I believe. Its on film, I read Dobson's account as well as descriptions by several Japanese who interestingly were less impressed by it then Dobson was. Unlike levitation imo it's not a mysterious power, its the extreme of mind/body coordination, showing off the power of amazing extension. It wasn't a one off kind of thing, he'd demonstrated at least a couple times. O'Sensei taught for decades and had generations of students. There are many films of him doing similar feats of withstanding huge force. He'd usually explain his legendary fudoshin (immovabilty) as being done because the gods had entered his body. One of his top students and founder of my style of Aikido, Koichi Tohei had a much more down to earth explanation and would simplify it into following 4 principles, 2 of mind, 2 of body. That and practice.. My Aikido sensei could hold a sword out against 2 people and explained how it was done.. ie the power of focused relaxed extension.. taken to it an extreme. He readily admitted he couldn't do 4 or 5 like Ueshiba did. Importantly, it's not supernatural, just remarkable training and insight expressed physically. Every weekend we'd have a Ki Class and play with these kinds of ki tricks. See how they'd apply to walking, sitting.. striking.. over all balance. My sensei had another cool trick. He could pick up short staff, hold it in the middle by one finger. Have two people grab the ends and together try to push the jo and him backwards. He stand there holding it with a finger, and smile. They couldn't do it, and if one pushed to hard, the other pusher would end up being forced back. Cool trick. How'd he do it, 30..40 years of practice in mind/body coordination. I expect if I had his dedication and put in the same amount of decades I could learn it, but like the one finger handstand.. it's a lotta effort for a 'trick'. Yet to do such, shows an amazing level of mastery. The horizontal sword 'trick' is one I never picked up, but I could do the old sitting while 8 or 9 people pushed against me in a line. And it wasn't all that hard. The secret is, two people pushing are harder then one, 3 might be harder then 2, but beyond 3 it didn't matter. They would interfere with each other. If you took up slack a certain way you could negate the push of the first person and then he's squashed and it was real easy. That is probably the biggest secret subtly negating the power immediately. I was never anywhere close to my instructor's ability. It's the kind of thing worked on over the years, and has some lessons in it, but not due to a mysterious power. Rather its part physics but to do, required relaxed extension. For me, the use of metaphor greatly increases the ability to create that relaxed extension. So.. the imagery of water (or qi) shooting powerfully out of your arm gave you access to that relaxed strength.

Just seeing him do the splits at 90 is damn impressive. If top guys from your school wanted to do a 1 finger handstand (against a wall), do you think they could train themselves for it?

levitation goes against physics, ie using some unknown undetectable dimension energy kinda thing. This is a handstand.. kids do it.. course its taken to the nth degree, but with a combination of extension and strength its possible. In truth I think the elite (thin) gymnast could train themselves to do a 2 finger handstand. This is just 1 finger less. This monk could be in the 80 to 95 pound range, and his feet are leaning against the wall. In truth, this is amazing, but not in my opinion superhuman or supernatural (human levitation would be one or the other..or bogus). We have clear records of people doing 2 finger handstands without a wall. Heck, I'm showing a 2014 video of a guy on America's Got Talent doing a 1 finger handstand. This is remarkable but then the entire Guinness Book of World Records is full of 1,000's of remarkable crazy records.

I think I'll try this come spring- seems like good bang for the buck: and some people use smaller bags, that they open occassional to pull out potatoes throughout the growing season as needed. from the video producer- Home Grown Veg 1 year ago Hello Sheila. Taking just the bigger potatoes and leaving the smaller ones + the ones in the middle of the compost that you can't see will let the potato plant concentrate all its energy into the remaining potatoes making them bigger so that when you finally take the pot there will be more bigger potatoes. If you have a small space with room for just a few pots of potatoes this is a way of getting just enough for a meal time after time. HGV & Home Grown Veg 2 weeks ago Hello Linda. I try to give them a drink every other day and every day if we get a really hot spell. Check this out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gah8HU8h6HM&t=1s I usually add enough fertilizer to the soil at planting then its just water after that. HGV

No, no no. If you think you need to keep explaining why the video isn't real. Keep it at it man. don't mind me.

While generally skeptic, I believe this video. Though I understand why it's easy to scoff at, especially since its a 90 year old man doing it. Yet with decades of hard practice, and incredible extension(qi) its within the human realm. My art is Aikido, and there are videos of Morihei Ueshiba doing amazing things as an old man. For example holding a sword out and having multiple people press against it sideways and it being immovable. Terry Dobson, a Westerner wrote he applied his full strength suddenly and didn't move an inch. This was filmed. In my view these acts are possible and take mind body coordination into the spiritual. Note they are not supernatural, the man is light, his ligaments and bones trained, his extension perfect. For all I know he had help getting into the position or was less then graceful, thus not shown, but I believe he did the one finger stand. However, doing some research we have the monks name. We can research him, see longer, more indepth videos of the man. Here the full longer video- Note there is a younger monk doing the same action at 10:45ish. You can see the set up. In this video you see demonstration of a two finger or rather 4 handstand with great control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LkhVeW7VV0 Shaolin is not without it critics. Particularly its modern, showman style. I've read exposes on serious MMA fighters who've visited its temple and found a mixed bag. So, here's a video of a Western gymnast/yoga type doing amazing handstand work (not one finger though) heck, here's someone doing a one finger pushup in an old America's got talent- Really the outer limits of strength and control are wild-

Yup, look like Saluki's to me.

Thing about Alice is, when she won, she was able to walk away. You realize that we (everyone answering the post) proved conclusively that the OP video was fake. And then you kept writing again and again.. just seems silly. A rabbit hole to avoid. Even now you seem to think its about defending the video instead of learning to move on instead of beating dead white rabbits.

I believe it. Amazing skill, dedication, mind body control. At a price, like many old karate men, they form such thick calluses and fused bones that there hands are semi-deformed.

maybe like this thread, they got distracted and pulled off course. Traveling in the West years ago, I found a small town that had an old Taoist shrine, built by the Chinese imported to build railroads in the 1800's. I got the feeling it was a remnant and there was no or little Taoist tradition going on there, but i could be wrong.

I'm thinking between ignoring and getting too involved there is the nice middle ground of stating ones truth and keeping it light.. cause hopefully we're all friends here and no need to pile on too heavy, especially when all the replies are pretty unanimously agreeing with your point of view. Its like, once you've sent the message clearly you don't need to keep beating the wet rug. Push too hard and suddenly the thread warps or gets too personal.

Ikea had some inexpensive green spectrum bulbs. There's also a wide underground re-purposing movement for there furniture. I wouldn't be surprised if people had hacked there inexpensive stuff into hydroponics. asks google hacking ikea into hydroponics . Oh yeah, two million hits and the first page or two has lots of ideas-

As an interesting aside, I grew up across the street from Brock Silvers. Smart kid, studied Chinese, lost touch with him but heard he was rebuilding Taoist monasteries. I didn't know he'd written a book, though it's not surprising. I'll have to get it. From my recollection Brock was a pretty straight shooter and beyond books and philosophy he spent much time in actual monasteries. I'd add many find.. disconnects between the Taoist philosophy and the formal Taoist religion. Which is fine. Odds are we're not heading to live in a monastery or venerate the Taoist pantheon. My life is better lived adhering to a few of the wise philosophical leanings.. bastardized and westernized they may be. addon> bought the (e)book. Another disconnect= $5 on Kindle, otherwise $62 and up from 3rd party sellers. I'm reminded in one of my last conversations with Brock he mentioned that Traditional Taoist would not consider Mantak Chia Taoist. So I'm not surprised his viewpoints come from an orthodox, old world view. Taoism is old, many roots and branches. Some shamanic, others dogmatic; many borrowing and adopting folk religions customs of ages past. It's not alone in that. The fact that such differences exist is owed to its flexibility, versus so many religions that have killed off, successfully or not, their shamanic and mystical origins as well as pantheons that didn't make the cut.

aw, don't be such a wet blanket. Cause one day some giant sized creature might be waddling towards you and by the time you debate its existence it'll be too late.

Looks good. I have 2 small gardens. I keep it simple, keep'em on my front lawn so I see them and take care of them often. My 'secrets' I love cherry tomatoes, they tend to grow fast and be fool proof. I'll stop by coffee places and get grounds (my goto is Whole Foods) and mixed with leaves and grass it makes for a nutritious mulch (so much so, it needs to sit for awhile couple weeks to break down so as not to burn anything). I've started a bit of a trend on my block to start front lawn gardens, just laying down decent quality 40# bags of soil (one slit on bottom, open on top) and planting straight out of them. The next year, get rid of the plastic bags and put a bit of boarder around it. Being narrow, weeding and watering is very easy. Keeping larger critters away, not so much. I keep to a gaspacho theme, ie tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Thus when the growing gets tough, I can juice/blend more then I can eat. I'll plant marigolds around the garden in hopes they scare bugs away. I tend to be too impatient to grow from seed or clone (except for leaf lettuce). I'll buy small plants and put a half bottle on top to protect them while young. I always end up growing too much, and things go to seed, plus I get a few tomato plants sprouting up naturally from last years fallen fruit. The chocolate mint sounds good. Mint is the ultimate weed and you can go straight into your mouth. I don't do hydroponics, but the systems I liked the best used 'canoes', ie tank below and growing the plants in floating canoes, where the root could hit a little bit of the water.

Can't think of anything else, in truth, I'm not so advanced, just have been known to hang out with some who are. Phils advice sounds good. Or.. just taking some time off from the energy work. Walks in nature, listening to dharma speeches- I like Infinitesmile.org.. simple sitting.. grounding stuff. Even listening to good music, give your mind and body a break. Given a chance the body tends to heal on its own, especially once we get out of its way.

Back to the original video. There is the physics that say such a large size would have massive problems walking etc., but there's also the problem of people's reaction. Yes, the Japanese can be restrained and stoic, but having an baby godzilla sized guy walking in a parade or standing right behind you would probably elicit a more human gawking response. Unless it was the giants daily stroll.

I usually meditate at night, the room probably a little chilly, in the mid 60's. Yet midway, I get warm, particularly my lower dantien area. Course I breathe slowly and keep my hands against folded touching below my belly and often have a slight rock. Nothing phenomenal. Often early on my nose and eyes will tear a little, which I believe is a reaction of a deep relaxation response. After meditation if I rub my hands together rapidly they seem to get way hotter then they would normally.

My standard advice to people is to avoid blunt force. Unless you're working with Golden Bell chi gung.. then its good. Here's one angle to consider: unless you were waay intense, or are very energy sensitive, odds are that it is because you believe it is. Energy stuff is so subtle that its possible that- if you believe you're leaking, you are leaking. If you believed such 'hits' gave you energy, you'd feel that way too. Everybody is different and take such internet advice with a grain of salt, but it might not be a bad idea to turn around in your head. Ideas can get stuck on us like leaches and when we stop giving them power, they fade away. In my opinion, we live in a placebo world. The secret is to make the placebos work for you.

Never say never. Strangely, short & dumb, can be very smart lucrative. and fun. So, a little bit in the oddball category from XIV or bitcoin can be good. Not long term and not with more then a percentage points of your entire savings. For me, its about honoring my instincts, but not absolutely trust them. Ie, if i feel a correction is coming, I'll sell a little bit, or buy a put or two. If it seems I'm correct, I'll do a little more. But from long experience, I've learned walking in a direction is better then running. If you've got a strong feeling for bitcoin, buy a little, maybe find an etf or fractional coin that gives you a taste. But buying is less then half the equation. Knowing when to sell, is more then half and then there's getting back in. Human psychology makes us naturally poor investors. Not only do we (& professionals) do worse then the market average, even when investing in the market average we do worse then it, because our instincts have us buy and sell at the wrong times. A friend and I have a running joke that the market gods are watching and they are vengeful**. So often as soon as you make an investment it immediately goes down. Nasty especially when it goes down after good news. The reality is there's a thousand of you(s) buying a thousand of you(s) selling and a market maker inbetween seeing the orders and stop orders and working to make their own largest 'cut'. **Perhaps the reason why so often a stock goes down as soon as you buy could be due to a 'Rick & Morty' phenomena. Rick is always saying he has infinite selves living out his life in other dimensions. To some extent We are not alone in our ideas. Those with similar mind sets are doing the same thing we are for the same reasons, cause they have the same data conscious and unconscious. So we're likely in the middle of the herd of Us's buying after the first half has raised the price. The early buyers have there bump and are now selling (to us) having made a quick 5% on the upside. This is not the worst thing, especially if your a long term investor. A few points here or there won't make or break you. Still not a bad idea to have a buy list (& sell list) and keep track of how a stock behavior before for a while; know why it goes up and down (news.. or floating on a markets movement like a beach ball..)

Stuff like that historically crashes and burns due to black swans. Unfortunately while it lasts it'll tend to accelerate market moves, since such programs usually use trend following algorithms. Yet since the beginning, forces infront and behind the market have always been able to take advantage of little inconsistencies. Inevitably once they're fully exploited, they disappear. A couple years ago Warren Buffet bet a hedge fund a million bucks they couldn't beat the market. He won handily (http://www.businessinsider.com/warren-buffett-wins-million-dollar-bet-against-hedge-funds-2018-1). Note the Hedge fund used the latest and greatest etc., etc. Being too smart, getting too far into schemes, speed and options.. or anything you don't understand or couldn't explain simply is not a good route to take in the long run. Keep thing simple and better to invest in a SWAN (Sleep Well At Night) then be taken by a Black Swan (unusual downward event that happen way more often then expected.) For most, a site like Wealthfront.com is a smart rational investment vehicle. I'm kinda proud my 18 year found it and is investing part of the money he gets tutoring math into it regularly.